Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Four Seasons by a Young Nantucket woman 1797

Phebe Folger Coleman (1771-1857) Spring - A schoolgirl copy of the Spring print of the Four Seasons Mezzotints published by Sayers and Bennett in London in 1785. They were hand-colored allegories of the seasons.

Phebe Folger Coleman (1771-1857) Summer - A schoolgirl copy of the Summer print of the Four Seasons Mezzotints published by Sayers and Bennett in London in 1785. They were hand-colored allegories of the seasons.

Phebe Folger Coleman (1771-1857) Fall - A schoolgirl copy of the Autumn print of the Four Seasons Mezzotints published by Sayers and Bennett in London in 1785. They were hand-colored allegories of the seasons.

Phebe Folger Coleman (1771-1857) Winter - A schoolgirl copy of the Winter print of the Four Seasons Mezzotints published by Sayers and Bennett in London in 1785. The hand-colored allegories of the seasons are seen below.

Phebe Folger (1771-1857) was a Nantucket commonplacebook author, watercolorist, poet, needlework instructor, & creator of the well-known “Nantucket sampler” style. She was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on November 10, 1771 to Walter Folger (1735-1826) & his wife Elizabeth Starbuck (1738-1821). She married Samuel Coleman (1771-1825) in Nantucket at the age of 27 on December 6, 1798. They had 2 daughters who lived to adulthood, & 3 additional daughters who died as children. Her husband, Samuel Coleman, worked at sea. She wrote him this letter during the 10th year of their marriage. Nantucket 9th mo. 19th 1808. Dear Husband, "I have felt a little guilty that I have deferred so long to write: but I had nothing worth communicating, nothing but what thou might reasonably suppose, that is, that I am very lonesome. Why should so much of our time be spent apart, why do we refuse the happiness that is within our reach? Is the acquisition of wealth an adequate compensation for the tedious hours of absence? To me it is not. The enjoyment of riches alone could give no satisfaction to me. In company I am not happy, I feel as if a part of my self was gone. Thy absence grows more insupportable than it used to be. I want for nothing but thy company: but there is nothing but what I could do better without..."

They moved near the Hudson River in Hudson City, Columbia County, New York, where they operated a grist mill. Phebe continued to run the mill after her husband's death in 1825. Sometime after 1850, Phebe moved to Fairhaven, Massachusetts, to live with her daughter Matilda (1812-1891) & her husband John Milton Howland (1810-1902). Phebe died at the age of 87 in Fairhaven.

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On March 4, 2011, Emile de Bruijn of the National Trust in the UK, wrote on his blog "Treasure Hunt" of making history and & art available to all: "Traditionally art history has been inherently elitist and exclusive, both socially and intellectually. Art tended to be commissioned by the upper classes. Connoisseurship was seen as a superior, refined skill and the products of art-historical scholarship were guarded almost as fiercely as the art itself."

On May 29, 1012, William Noel, now Director of Special Collections Center & Director of Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. University of Pennsylvania, told The TED Blog, "...digital data is not a threat to real data, it’s just an advertisement that only increases the aura of the original, so there just doesn’t seem to be any point in putting restrictions on the data. There is the further fact that the data is funded by taxpayers’ money. So it didn’t seem fair to limit what taxpayers could do with the data that they paid for."

On February 7, 2017, Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced a new policy: all images of public-domain artworks in the Museum's collection are now available for free & unrestricted use. "We have been working toward the goal of sharing our images with the public for a number of years. Our comprehensive & diverse museum collection spans 5,000 years of world culture & our core mission is to be open & accessible for all who wish to study & enjoy the works of art in our care. Increasing access to the Museum’s collection & scholarship serves the interests & needs of our 21C audiences by offering new resources for creativity, knowledge, & ideas."